How many instances of WoW can this Box run?

[Sinkaitos]

Hi, Im trying to figure out ho wmany Instances of WoW this single Box can run with good FPS and MS. Here are the specs"

Processor:
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8400 3.00GHz 6MB Cache 1333MHz FSB

Power Supply:


Alienware® 750 Watt Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply


Graphics Card:


Single 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 9800 GT

Memory:


2GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz - 2 x 1024MB

Motherboard :


Alienware® Approved NVIDIA® nForce® 790i Ultra SLI™ Motherboard
Includes PCI-Express 2.0, DDR3 Memory, and Support for Intel 1600 FSB

OS:


Windows Vista® Home Premium with Service Pack 1 – DirectX 10 Ready!

Hard Drive:


250GB SATA 3Gb/s 7,200RPM 16MB Cache

Sound Card:
High-Definition 7.1 Performance Audio

Yes, it is an Alienware im considering buying, since I dont know alot about building computers and dont wanna mess up. It seems to me one powerfull box will be easier to get then building 3 Box's (already have 2).

[Oternakn]

5 but get more ram

[JasonB87]

You could get away with 5 but you will have mediocre fps and probably not make it into cities. This would probably run 2-3 with decent fps and 2 with good fps. The issue you will run into is memory and the cpu.

As for multiple boxes versus single boxes, I think multiple boxes is slightly more expensive. Single it will need to be beefy to run 5 instances with good fps where as you can lack on performance if buying 5 boxes. Example my box runs 5 clients but has cost me close to $2,200 and if I was going to do hardware boxing I'd grab a couple $500 boxes from dell and a hardware broadcaster (not sure how much these run for).

[-silencer-]

The question isn't how many it will run, it's how many displays and of what size are you going to try to run, as well as how WELL it will run.
For example, my old E6600 dual-core with 4GB of memory and 8800GTX ran 5 instances of WoW across two 24" monitors fairly well until I hit Outlands, then performance dropped a little. However, I hit Northrend, and performance dropped quite a bit. While playing lvl 0-60 with 5 instances of WoW, my RAM usage was at 85%. That's with no add-ons, and only firefox running in the background.. with ~3.2GB of available memory in WinXP 32bit.
Once I installed my Q6600, performance had significant gains.. quad core & more than 2GB of RAM is worth it for more than two instances of WoW.

First, follow the advice people have been giving here for over a year:
If you're planning on multiboxing on one computer, stick with a quad core!
If you're planning on multiboxing on one computer, don't skimp on RAM.
Frame rates will be influenced heavily by the size and number of monitors you'll be using.. so you'll need stronger videocards for larger/multiple monitors.

That machine you listed is only a dual-core, only has 2GB of memory, and only has a 9800GT-512MB card. You *may* be able to run 3-4 instances of WoW on one 22" monitor with decent fps, but those windows will be tiny. The first limit is the memory. Get 4GB - it's cheap enough now. ($55 for 4GB of Corsair DDR2-800 at newegg.com.. and nearly anyone can pop in new memory.) Second, I'd take the Q6600 quad core over an E8000 series dual-core any day for 4-5 boxing. A Q6600 is $190.

[-silencer-]

Single it will need to be beefy to run 5 instances with good fps where as you can lack on performance if buying 5 boxes. Example my box runs 5 clients but has cost me close to $2,200 and if I was going to do hardware boxing I'd grab a couple $500 boxes from dell and a hardware broadcaster (not sure how much these run for).
Not entirely true. You don't need to spend a ton of money to 5-box WoW.. even with WotLK, it's not a demanding game.

Here's a foundation for a perfectly fast 5-boxing machine on a budget.. I've built this system 8 times in the last 6 months for people with only slight changes in case/motherboard/videocard/power supply based on their taste or availability of the product for a good price.. the SSD is one I've used twice now, and it's fantastic for our use:
Q6600 $190
DFI/Asus/Gigabyte P45 mid-range motherboard $125-150
8GB DDR2-800 $110
HD4870-1GB/GTX260 $240-260
1TB Samsung Spinpoint F1 hard drive $95
30GB OCZ Solid SSD $75
Samsung DVD burner $25
Corsair/SeaSonic 520-600W Power Supply $100-140
Case of your choice.. $35-150
Mouse & Keyboard $20
Vista Home Premium 64-bit $100
$1115-1315

Add speakers and a 24" montior.. $300-350. Done.. and we're quite a bit under $2000.

[JasonB87]

Well to correct myself you could easily get away with a computer only costing ~$1200 I was merely just using mine as an example which was built for other things like video editing/processing and software development.

[-silencer-]

Well to correct myself you could easily get away with a computer only costing ~$1200 I was merely just using mine as an example which was built for other things like video editing/processing and software development.
The above machine I listed does everything you mentioned perfectly fine.. perhaps faster and RAID0 hard drives to increase video encoding performance, but there's not an overwhelming difference between a Q6600 and Q9550. The big difference is the major change in architecture to the Core i7 series CPUs.

[JasonB87]

Faster than what? and what are you comparing the i7 series to?

[-silencer-]

Faster than what? and what are you comparing the i7 series to?
I was stating we could make the machine I suggested faster for video encoding by adding faster hard drives in a RAID0 array, as video encoding is very hard drive and multi-thread dependent. As for Core i7, it blows away both Q6xxx and Q9xxx series CPUs, especially when given the video processing to match. Just check the performance increase by going from a 3x GTX 280 SLI setup with a QX9770 (extreme Q9xxx series) to a Core i7 965 (extreme Nehalem series).. it's very large. (there's a review by a major site around somewhere.. i think it was guru3d.com) And compiling/encoding is even more significant due to the on-board memory controller and associated bandwidth combined with the return of hyperthreading.

In short,
Core i7 = on-board memory controller & 8 separate process threads, 45nm manufacturing process with totally new architecture.
Core 2 Q9xxx = northbridge memory controller & 4 separate process threads, 45nm manufacturing process with nearly identical architecture as Core 2 6xxx series.
Core 2 Q6xxx = northbridge memory controller & 4 separate process threads, 65nm manufacturing process.

Core i7 is much different (better) than the very-similar Q9550/Q6600 chips.

[JasonB87]

I get what your saying now. You first comment was a little confusing. I agree that i7 is clearly better but that is running away from the original topic. The main point is the computer that was originally suggested from alienware could use an upgrade to quad-core and some more memory. As for my computer it does what I need just fine.